1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications, and more particularly to the selective activation of phone ring-tones.
2. Description of the Related Art
Caller identification techniques have become a necessary aspect of personal telecommunications management in consequence of the explosion of personal communications devices in the marketplace. Persons ranging from pre-adolescents through convalescents carry cellular telephones as readily as they carry wallets and purses. As a result of the mass distribution of personal communications devices, today anyone can be reached by telephone at any hour, regardless of the desirability of one to be “reached”. In many ways, people have become overly accessible.
As a solution to having become overly accessible, it stands to reason that one simply can discard their cellular telephones, or at the minimum, choose not to answer incoming phone calls when it becomes inconvenient to do so. Still, most who carry cellular telephones remain acutely aware that enhanced reachability can prove important in the case of an emergency, or at least when a call has been deemed “urgent” or “important”. To that end, it is known to provide distinctive ring-tones for selected individuals who originate phone calls from specified phone numbers. By identifying the caller by phone number and matching the identified phone number to a phone number pre-specified in a list of phone numbers, a distinct ring-tone can be audibly produced which differs from the ordinary ring-tone produced by the telephone handset. By recognizing the distinct ring-tone, the call recipient can know that the person who is calling is considered of higher priority than a typical caller.
Examples of distinctive ringing technology include that which has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,661,788 for “Method and System for Selectively Alerting User and Answering Preferred Telephone Calls” and in PCT Application Publication No. WO 02/087209 entitled “Device for Selecting Ring Tones in Real Time According to the Caller's Number and Associated Methods and Systems.” In both publications, distinctive ring tones are produced responsive to the matching of a caller's number to a phone number in a pre-specified list. In this way, the call recipient can infer a priority of the call based upon a pre-determination that any call having the distinctive ring-tone is a higher priority call than calls producing an ordinary ring-tone.
Notably, in an emergency circumstance, it is possible to alter the ring-tone of an incoming phone call in order to denote a sense of urgency. For example, in United States Patent Application Publication US 2002/0054673 A1 and in U.S. Pat. No. 6,370,233 B1, both entitled “Security System with Call Management Functionality”, a home security system can screen incoming phone calls at night to enforce evening privacy. Where a caller indicates that a call is an emergency, despite a request by the home security system that the caller ought to leave a message, the home security system can permit the house telephone to ring with a distinctive ring tone to indicate that the phone call is an emergency. It will be recognized by the skilled artisan, however, that as described in the foregoing publications, the home security cannot prevent any person who calls the home security system from feigning an emergency to cause the phone call to ring through to the household.